Hello all,

This question is regarding data storage systems such as CouchDB, HDFS and HBase, specifically, which is right.

I am looking at making a simple and customized Document Management System for my organization. Basically, we need the ability to store some Word Documents, PDFs and other similar files. I also want to store metadata about these files (e.g., Author, Dates, etc). Usage permissions would also be handy, but that can probably be built using meta-data. I would also need the ability to full-text index. The ability to version, while not required would be extremely useful.

I would like the ability to simply add hardware to expand the resources of the system and the system must support Network Attached Storage over the CIFS or NFS protocol(s).

I have read about CouchDB, HDFS and HBase. My preferred programming language is C# as all of my end-users will be running Windows machines and I will want to make both web and winforms client implementations.

My question is which solution best fits my needs?

Based on my research it appears that CouchDB (utilizing the CouchDB-Lounge and CouchDB-Lucene) perfectly fits my needs. However, I am worried that since I have worked with CouchDB that I might be overlooking something useful for my needs in HDFS or HBase or something similar due to a bias.

Any and all opinions are welcome as I am looking for the community input as I really do not want to make the wrong choice at the start of my project. Please ask if you need more information.

I thank you all for your time, input and assistance.